


Damon/Elena Shipper's Manifesto from 3/17/2011

by badboy_fangirl



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 11:41:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10741008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: Written towards the end of S2.





	Damon/Elena Shipper's Manifesto from 3/17/2011

**Author's Note:**

> Just moving all my meta stuff here now as well.

****

The Damon and Elena Shipper's Manifesto  
[](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v222/americanoutlaw/TVD/?action=view&current=ElenaDamonhands.jpg)

This manifesto falls into three phases: Epicity, Chemistry, and Longevity.

 **Phase One: Epicity**  
[if one is going to make up a word, it might as well sound cool. Say it with me, eh-pesity, not epic-city. It's a state of being, not a location.]

When EPIC love stories are talked about in film, television, and literature, you sometimes hear that trite phrase _boy meets girl._ Through the years there have been a million variations on this event, and in recent years _boy stalks girl, and girl likes it_ seems to be the new wave rendition.

I mean, everyone's heard of Bella Swan, right?

The first time Damon and Elena are on-screen together, he is stalking her. She's in a cemetery, writing in her journal, missing her parents who died in a tragic accident months earlier. He's checking her out for a couple reasons. 1) She looks just like the woman he's spent 145 years waiting on/pining for/plotting to rescue; and 2) his brother has also been stalking her because of her resemblance to this other woman (who he was also involved with).

The thing is, he's not being romantic in his stalking. [I would strongly argue that stalking is _never_ romantic, but that's just me.] Damon is an unapologetic predator who is just as likely to rip out Elena's jugular as he is anything else. Because, see, Damon is a vampire. And Elena is just a human girl who bears a strong resemblance to the love of his life, Katherine Pierce.

This in no way sounds like an epic love story, does it? At least not between Damon and Elena.

So, we cut to Damon's brother Stefan meeting Elena instead. He smiles at her, she smiles back. They talk. It's epic, etc., etc. (I'm quoting the characters here, not poking fun at their quick road to love.) 

Now, wait a second. Think about epic love stories. Rhett and Scarlett. Cathy and Heathcliff. Darcy and Elizabeth. Anne and Gilbert. These aren't people who got together after a few interactions. They took years to build up to something that can typically be called epic. (Some of it, epically sad.)

The first time Elena meets Damon formally in episode 1x02, he's sizing her up, planting seeds of destruction, bent on torturing his brother for wrongs nearly 150 years old. (Guy carries a grudge, to say the least.) She has no clue about any of this, of course, but the audience becomes aware of it quickly.

And then there's what I call **The Awakening**.  
[](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v222/americanoutlaw/TVD/?action=view&current=Elenayoulosthertoo.jpg)  
[](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v222/americanoutlaw/TVD/?action=view&current=Damontheawakening.jpg)

The second time they interact in episode 1x03, Damon strong-arms his way into Elena's house during a dinner party she's thrown for Stefan (her new boyfriend) and Bonnie (her best girlfriend) so they can get to know each other. Damon gets his new girlfriend Caroline (Elena's other best girlfriend) to take him to her house, and despite Stefan's blatant attempts to keep Damon from coming inside the house, Elena invites him in. 

Sometimes you just connect with people, you know? I think all people everywhere have had that experience. You can't explain it, it just happens. And to me, that's what happens here with Damon and Elena. She can read him, he can read her, and though he's up to no good, and his intentions are bad, something magical happens to him anyway. In his effort to worm his way into Elena's life and mind, he opens himself up to her. It's all chance. It happens because he's not expecting her to be anything special. She looks like Katherine, but she can never compare to his ladylove. 

Except that she doesn't compare, at all. She's far and away a better person, a kind human being, a girl of significance. And though you see a flicker of it on his face here, he has no idea what has just happened to him. [He got **Punk'd**.] No, seriously, what he got was woken up. The dead part of his soul, the part he shut away for 145 years pricks its metaphorical ears forward, hearing the call of...the woman who will change his life.

Now, that's not to say that Elena will save Damon. Physically, she eventually saves him from death several times, or her efforts have at least preserved his life. What will save Damon, ultimately, IMHO, is the way Elena makes him feel--or rather, that he feels anything at all because of her. And because of that, he doesn't just become "a person worth saving," he becomes "someone capable of greatness" -- and he becomes someone who will save himself.

Now that? **THAT'S EPIC.**

[And I suspect this will happen, even if Damon and Elena never get together, which, to my mind, makes them all the more 'Ship worthy.] 

On Elena's part, she's a girl who lost her parents, who feels guilty that she had a hand in what happened to them--a girl who still has to come of age in a world greatly changed by the fact that she is now aware of the Supernatural all around her. It makes her entrance into the adult world, first with her parents' deaths and then with the realization that there are all kinds of monsters out there, a rocky one. A phenomenally scary one, even. Slowly things begin to shift for her, just like they do for anyone who grows up and begins to understand that life isn't always as simple as black and white.

Stefan is her first step into the murky gray. But her friendship with Damon is her submersion. Because to care about Damon is to leave black and white forever in the background. 

It happens in degrees. First, when she wants her brother Jeremy to be compelled to forget the death of his girlfriend Vicki (who just happened to be turned into a vampire by Damon, and then gets staked by Stefan). She asks Stefan to work his vampire magic and take away Jeremy's pain. Stefan is unable to do this because of his "vegan" diet, so Damon volunteers. And Elena lets him. (Episode 1x07 "Haunted.")

Then when a rogue vampire comes on the scene and threatens her, she accepts Damon's protection along with Stefan's, agreeing to the fact that they will kill to preserve her. (Episode 1x12 "Unpleasantville.")

As all of this is unfolding, she continues to reveal her empathy for Damon, no more so when they find out that Katherine, the woman Damon's been in love with for 145 years, deceived him. She offers him comfort that he doesn't exactly accept, but doesn't totally reject either. (Episode 1x14 "Fool Me Once.") And something new begins to happen.

Elena begins to be attracted to Damon. The first stirrings of carnal connection begin to unfold. Which leads us to...

 **Phase Two: Chemistry**  
I'm not saying that Elena isn't attracted to Damon before this point in the story, but I am saying that she's not aware of it until 1x15 "A Few Good Men." [Watch her level of discomfort here as she obviously looks at his mouth in [THIS SCENE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuUDz6e25zw).]

I'm going to take a moment to put a little aside in here. With television and film, chemistry is an organic event that happens between actors and literally makes or breaks the believability of the events unfolding. You, as the viewer, either buy what they're selling, or you don't. I also think chemistry can't be orchestrated or fabricated, though a good actor has the ability to have chemistry with everyone (think Scott Bakula on _Quantum Leap_ ). When it happens (think Kate and Sawyer on _LOST_ ), you just have to capture it and enjoy it, to whatever end.

As actors, Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev have amazing chemistry. They spark, and sparkle, while together on screen whether she's portraying Elena or Katherine. I find that Nina has chemistry with Paul Wesley too, but when she's Elena it's much quieter and vaguely pleasant. When she's Katherine, it's amped up and they become a more interesting duo. Now, this is just my opinion, obviously, but I'm going to use this scene as my proof:

[ ](http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v222/americanoutlaw/TVD/?action=view&current=Dancing.jpg)

When I watched this scene the first time, my words were: "That scene had more heat than all the other scenes combined up until now."

It was another awakening. As it begins, Damon and Elena are worried about Stefan, who is going through a difficult time. They're both preoccupied with that situation, and just trying to fulfill the obligation that Elena has in the Miss Mystic Falls Pageant. But as the dance progresses, you can watch them both get lost in it--lost in each other--and that moment when they come out of it at the end? **THAT'S PRICELESS**. Because the fact that they both come back to reality is so perfect, but also, they can't unlearn what they've just learned. (Episode 1x19 "Miss Mystic Falls.") They felt something--both of them--and they will have to deal with it at some point, because it's only going to escalate from here.

When people have that feeling between them, it's both unrealistic to think they'll never act on it, and a huge waste of an opportunity. [My hope is that TPTB aren't planning on squandering that opportunity.]

And that leads me to...

 **Phase Three: Longevity**  
What happens if these characters become romantically linked? Can they have a lasting relationship? If this question is based on loyalty and commitment, the answer is absolutely. There are no two people who are more loyal and committed than Damon and Elena when the right situation is placed before them. He waited around for 145 years to try to break the woman he loved out a tomb, and Elena is willing to die for all her friends and family. They are both incredibly single-minded.

Additionally, over the course of the show, as Damon has continued to soften and Elena has continued to harden, they meet in the middle more often. Their affect on each other is subtle, minute. She finds out he turned her biological mother into a vampire, and she's pissed. Damon feels regret for the first time in a long time. Stefan gets into trouble, and out of their mutual love for him, they have to work together to help him. They find a viable solution (twice) and execute their plan with positive results. When Elena is faced with huge life decisions like meeting her birth mother (who is now a vampire), Damon is the only one with the wherewithal to remind Elena that she has a choice. When Elena knows that Damon is hurting over a case of "doppelganger hijinks," she goes to him and tries to make it better. 

When he kills her brother in a drunken rage, he apologizes. And he means it. And he pays for it, over and over again until Elena forgives him without even really knowing why. Except that they are connected, and she can't not care about him. [The reason that it hurt her so much in the first place is because she has such deep feelings for him, because her brother doesn't stay dead, thanks to a magical ring, but she stays mad for a long time. I'd like to state explicitly here that she's not as mad as she is hurt, which is interesting because she so often is able to identify when Damon is operating under that emotion--hurt over anger--and yet it's such a fine line. The proof of this is the way she kisses Stefan in 2x03 "Bad Moon Rising," right in front of Damon with this belligerent, purposeful expression on her face. She's plenty mean and snarky to him the entire episode, but it's that action--rubbing her romantic relationship in his face because she knows it will hurt him because of how he feels about her that is so...Damon-like.] I also believe the scene where Damon declared his love and then erased her memory is a big part of what made her subconsciously forgive him. (Episode 2x08 "Rose," which is linked below.)

And ultimately, what makes me think that they could last forever is the fact that they bring balance to one another. Elena makes Damon want to be a better person, even though he hasn't worked that out entirely yet. Damon makes Elena want to understand the world around her, and figure out her place in it.

There is a very telling scene in episode 2x13 "Daddy Issues," when Elena and Damon are having a discussion about helping a friend out who is in danger. Damon, as quid pro quo, wants to kill all the people responsible for the threat, but one of those people is Tyler Lockwood, a boy Elena has known her whole life. She says something like, "Do whatever you have to do to get Caroline back, but don't hurt Tyler."

It's telling that Elena has now accepted and actually appreciates Damon's way of doing things--because she lives in a world where she recognizes it's kill or be killed. She still puts limits and restrictions on those things (and it's noteworthy that Damon doesn't kill Tyler), but she is a changed girl. She's evolved because of her association with Stefan and his brother, and I daresay that Damon's influence is easily seen upon her at this stage of the competition. [To quote Caroline Forbes, make no mistake about it, it is a competition, and even though Damon believes he's taken himself out of the running, it's still going on. You can watch him take himself out of it [HERE.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4JsgnC-Yg) Most romantic scene evah!]

In this same episode, Damon laments to a new ladyfriend that he loves Elena, but can never have her. The problem, he explains, is not that she's with another man, it's that he doesn't like the feeling of vulnerability it brings to his life to love her. He doesn't like how the feelings she gives him makes him conflicted over things he's done thoughtlessly for almost 150 years. Andie, his ladyfriend, says poignantly, "Well, maybe this is who you are now. Love does that, Damon, it changes us."

Remember, how back at the beginning of this ridiculously long post I said it's a coming-of-age story for Elena? Well, it's also a coming-of-age story for Damon. It's a redemption story, and an epic love story. It's a story about two people who impact each other in positive and negative ways, and it's a story about a boy who meets a girl.

And more than anything, I think it's the story of two brothers who are repeating history, and when it comes right down to it, Stefan will do the right thing this time--he will care that his brother wants the same woman he does, and he will recognize that she cares just as much about Damon as she does about him. And he will offer the ultimate sacrifice for both of their happiness.

Or maybe he won't, and Elena will just choose Damon over Stefan.

Either way, it will be **EPIC**.


End file.
